These days, when Catholics talk about someone being a saint, this usually has nothing to do with signs or wonders, but with a life of heroic virtue. Further back in church history, however, stories of the saints are often filled with anecdotes about the miraculous. Some stories tell of miraculous healings or rescues; others tell of saints levitating or flying through the air.

“Yes, but those were just legends,” people may say—but the Catholic Church does teach that miracles are real, and it still requires evidence of the miraculous as part of the process of canonization. So what are we to make of these older stories of saints levitating or performing miraculous or supernatural feats? Are the faithful required to believe these things happened?

On this episode of the podcast, guest Carlos Eire talks about the motif of levitation in Catholic hagiography. Eire is the T. Lawrason Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale University, and a historian of late medieval and early modern Europe. His most recent book, They Flew: A History of the Impossible from Yale University Press, explores miraculous events such as levitation in the era of transition to modernity. He has also written a highly acclaimed memoir about his experience as a child escapee from the Castro regime in Cuba.

You can learn more about this topic, and read some of Eire’s writing, in these links:

“Making sense of levitating saints,” by Carlos Eire
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/saints-levitation-bilocation-eire-miracles-history

“Historian sets his eyes on levitating saints in book ‘They Flew’,” by Patrick J. Hayes
https://www.ncronline.org/culture/book-reviews/historian-sets-his-eyes-levitating-saints-book-they-flew

“Your field guide to flying saints,” by Kathleen M. Carroll
https://www.franciscanmedia.org/franciscan-spirit-blog/your-field-guide-to-flying-saints/

“Why does the church require miracles for sainthood?” by Heidi Schlumpf
https://uscatholic.org/articles/201112/why-does-the-church-require-miracles-for-sainthood/

Glad You Asked is sponsored by the Claretian Missionaries.
https://www.claretians.org/